Okcupid is my favourite dating site or app because of its questions feature. Okcupid questions let you state your preferences and deal breakers and figure out how a potential date feels about the same questions before you’ve ever even talked to them. I like this feature so much I’m often tempted to ask dates I meet on other sites to make an Okcupid account just so I can browse their questions (I haven’t done this though, yet…).

In this post I’ll go over the basics of Okcupid questions, including a list of questions asexual people might want to answer. Since aces come to identify as asexual for a variety of reasons I’ve tried to be as broad and inclusive as possible, including questions that gauge interest in sexual behaviour, sex drive, sexual attraction, flirting, kissing, cuddling, bdsm and more. If there’s enough interest in a future post I’ll delve into more detail about how to best use the questions feature to your advantage. After you put in the initial effort I describe skimming a profile on Okcupid for basic compatibility takes about 30 seconds.

Match Percentage

If you have an Okcupid account questions you’ve answered, and the questions the person whose profile you’re viewing has answered, determine your mutual match percentage. I’ll save how match percentage actually works for the more advanced post, but for now I’ll just say it’s generally useful.

I use match percentage in a few ways. When I log on to Okcupid I see anywhere from 0-10 new messages. If I have a lot of messages I won’t even check out someone’s profile if they’re below a 70% match. I answered my questions carefully so they’re very unlikely to be compatible (because they’re not friendly with my kind of ace or for some other reason). I also skim my visitors history by match percentage and will click on profiles above an 80% match. Finally, I sort the search feature by match percentage.

I only ignore match percentage when I am low on messages and can’t find any high matches I want to message.

Unacceptable Answers

When answering questions you have to answer for yourself and indicate how you want other users to answer. For example I answered that I’m a dog person, but I don’t care if someone is a dog person, a cat person, or both.

A more relevant example is an ace person might have no interest in sex. They should answer the relevant question from my list below saying they would date someone with no interest in sex and mark as unacceptable someone who wouldn’t. They can then check out another user’s questions to see if that person would date someone with no interest in sex. Alternatively, an ace person might be interested in sex and answer the question to make sure their potential future date also is.

When you look at someone else’s answers anything that appears in black text is an acceptable answer. Anything that appears in red text has been marked as unacceptable by the other user.

You should answer at least 100 questions, but only questions that really matter to you. Skip all the questions like STALE is to STEAL and how gloves work; they get in the way of finding unacceptable answers and make your match percentage unreliable.

The first thing I do when I go to someone’s profile is check out what we thought about each other’s answers. You can sort questions by importance to you and importance to them.

A List of Ace-Relevant Okcupid Questions

Ace-Friendliness Commentary

Please note that the rest of the content in this blog post includes references to sexual acts, bdsm, and nonconsent. If you would like an altered list of theOkcupid questions so you can read them please let me know how I can filter them for you and I will do my best.

You can list yourself as asexual on Okcupid (which I actually choose not to do, maybe more on this later) but unfortunately many of the questions are not inclusive of aces. I think this negatively affects sex-averse, sex-repulsed, and sex-neutral aces most obviously. For some of the multiple choice questions there is no option to disclose that you do not want to have sex or do sexual acts. The questions in general suit sex-favourable aces, but they don’t make any distinctions that would highlight actually being ace (and make invisible that part of your identity).

I recommend answering the questions strategically and where appropriate including an explanation in the fill in box, but obviously that’s not ideal and for many of us this is a make-do with the tools at our disposal.

If you have an Okcupid account you can log in and click on the link to answer the questions I listed.

Consent

“No means NO!” The options are “Always. Period.” and some very scary answers that condone sexual assault. To clarify this question is here to help users weed out people who don’t respect consent and doesn’t indicate that Okcupid as a site condones lack of consent, but it’s still pretty uncomfortable and possibly triggering.

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About Talia

Talia is an asexual, nonbinary, vegan-feminist that drinks a lot of coffee and stays up very late playing Blizzard video games and writing fiction. They are working on a PhD in Environmental Studies where they think a lot about oppression as intersectional and impacting identities differentially. Talia has a particular fondness for asexuality, fandom, and Critical Animal Studies. Their personal blog is petuniaparty.tumblr.com

The short version is putting I’m asexual on a dating site doesn’t share the information I want to convey (that I only experience no sexual attraction). Even well meaning people likely misunderstand. I always disclose before a first date or on a first date and have so far had no problems. The disclosing actually reinforces my position; I usually have to talk them through my asexuality, even if they’ve heard of asexuality before. It sucks because I’d like to say I’m asexual up front but strategically I’ve chosen not to. Maybe others would want to do this depending on how they experience asexuality. Maybe not. Having a conversation rather than giving a label up front seems to work well for me.

I wonder about a side thing…
“Imagine your date starts groping you in the car while you’re driving. Which would you be most likely to do?”
Is there an option “I don’t drive” or are people who exclusively use public transportation as UNTHINKABLE as adults who don’t have sex?